rnacreative

[rnacreative]

Just when I think I was getting somewhere, it ends.

The confidence was slowly building, the experiences, and then to feel like a part of it was taken away.

My mind is back at square one.

Doubt, uncertainty.

A sense of worthlessness. If I wasn't, you would've tried, right?

Being loved is hard once that door opens even when someone has a lot to give.

In the end, things don't work out.

The journey continues.

[rnacreative]

My eyes open, and I look around the room in disbelief as the candle I left burning flickers.

Forgot to blow it out.

I can still hear your words lingering on the edge of my mind as I quickly recall and type things out.

You were the you I remembered, and I can't for the life of me think of why you visited me and gave me a message to tell your mother.

I did it because you asked, and I hope it helps her somehow.

"Tell her she did her best, and it's not her fault. There was nothing she could've done."

I may have "dreamed" this all up, and it wasn't you or I just needed to feel better, i guess? I don't know, but I haven't thought of you in a while, and this was oddly specific.

You were watching TV and had a calm look on your face. One that was rarely seen back when I knew you and loved you.

"We were just kids," I told him as soon as we both apologized for how chaotic we were. Two fucking water signs, no wonder.

Maybe my brain is still processing your passing, and it invented a realistic scenario for me to see you one last time and have a conversation. Even then, you still crack a joke that you're in my head as you hug me goodbye because I'm waking up fully.

Most of my dreams make no fucking sense. Rarely do I have the dead visiting me.

As I type this, the candle dims and goes out completely.

Now, all that's left are words and memories in my mind.

It's morbid and comforting at the same time. This day has no real significance in the timeline of years ago except right before I went away.

Right before you were mean to me at a party or before I really lost myself for a while.

Either way, this realistic dream was strangely positive to leave me with inner reflection and words I can't get out of my head fast enough.

Maybe this dream was to replace some of the negativity, or perhaps that's all it is, a dream and nothing more.

I don't know what I'm meant to do half the time, and I'm sad every time you cross my mind when a familiar song comes on that we listened to or when I hear something new and know you'd love it.

Then you say the words, "I'm always with you."

Why would you comfort me when we haven't talked in years? We dated over a decade ago.

Why now?

But, of course, right before I open my eyes, I hear,

"Go be the incredible woman I know you to be."

[rnacreative]

The rain pelts swiftly against the window. She remembers where she was a year ago. As if the sky has opened up to mourn the past with her.

The end of a relationship. The end of a different time.

She knows it was for the best, but she can always recognize how much work it was to get to where she is.

She turned 30 only to have it ruined after the most relaxing vacation and time away. Sinking into herself, her 30s were already off to a great start. The rain knows those tears shed.

Work and being harassed by an ex, what else to add?

A new diagnosis and struggle with mental health.

There is always something about this time of year that leads to such introspection.

Breakups, moves, drama, car issues, her thrice removed ex for being suicidal and staying on suicide watch, or stuck living in a fake family who thrived on secrets. The list grows with each passing year, but as the list grows, so does she.

No matter the journey or drama, she somehow pulls herself from the rubble, finding a path forward. It's a feat of wonder that leaves her to believe she can do anything she sets her mind to.

The path forward is one of dreams she hopes to give herself. As life hasn't been easy, and while she's empathetic, she's consciously aware.

Just what awaits her past the rainy gray skies? Will it get better or continue to be a rollercoaster?

The rain knows.

[rnacreative]

When I heard the words I already knew, I also knew how I had to sit with it. There was a sense of relief at the same time, an answer to a question I've been asking all my life.

I didn't fit into what everyone wanted me to be, and I knew I wasn't like my peers around me.

The weird quiet kid living in their own little world. The reader, the artist, the child-like curiosity with imagination to build little worlds.

That kid was also traumatized.

Dissociation and masking were all I knew. At the end of the day, I had to survive with the tools I had and figure out the rest blindly in adulthood.

The healing journey doesn't stop.

I do wonder where I'll go from here. I am weird about certain labels which is where I'm torn with what certain labels bring. I have anxiety. I am not solely anxiety. I have depression, but I am not the depression.

An added label - I am not ready to claim autism, but I am prepared to continue to be myself with the understanding of why my brain is built differently. I may be autistic, but I am not solely autism. I am a person, a creative, who somehow strings sentences together to create an image-a world.

Yet, despite all of this, it is perfectly okay to feel all the things. I don't belong in a box, so I made my own.

The new label doesn't change anything about me as a person, I always strayed off the given path to explore anyways.

♥

[rnacreative]

✧˖°.🎧⋆ ˚｡⋆☕₊˚.🍂

[rnacreative]

I stared at the bottles of pills for twenty minutes.

Could I really do this again? Had I gone too long pretending I didn't need it?

In a Xanax induced state from the previous night, I sighed heavily beginning to read the labels and side effects.

Anxiety. Depression.

Words I was all too familiar with.

I had meds off and on before, but I didn't like how they worked with me. I kept the Xans, as immediate for panic attacks and the anxiety thought loops.

I didn't use them too often until I started therapy to heal.

It was like I opened my own pandoras box. Learning what boundaries were and taking away those intense emotions with EMDR. A life saver for a fucked up human like me. It is what it is. Trauma does that to you.

Eventually, it became more bearable as I looked inside the shambles of my soul.

It took me a long time to realize I had the power the whole time. Instead, I let people take these pieces of me away until I am left to rebuild again. It's different every time, disguised with good intentions.

I stayed away from meds but the Xanax. I was careful not to get addicted.

2020 and on hit, and my brain was rewired again. Then I moved and got myself into the mental health field. My brain was still processing that I didn't want to be with my ex, but I couldn't move again. So I stayed. Stuck.

My creativity exploded, and I channeled my frustrations and emotions elsewhere in an environment I couldn't change yet.

Then, it started to pile up, and I began to realize that I was always in survival mode. I still am.

When you stop being there, your body can't distinguish.

The threats are no longer people, but words that hurt you or actions and lack of boundaries. The shit you fight for when you're healing.

One thing led to another, after leaving that environment, I thought maybe things would get better, and my brain and body would understand that we are okay.

No, turns out when you're finally out of the thick of it, you're left behind with these ruined pieces with a terrible response to stress.

So, here I am, debating with myself over fucking medication because of fear. I'd rather be a wreck than not feel anything at all or lose who I am st my core level.

Then, I thought back, the past few weeks where nothing worked anymore, and I stopped functioning in all aspects of my life.

Then, I started saying what I needed without fear anymore as my nerves light on fire. How I need those boundaries and some goddamn relief.

I took the medication.

It is perfectly okay if it's chemically made.

I am giving it my best. It's okay to admit defeat and try all the options first.

Why did medication have to be so scary?

Remembering where I came from and who I am now... she needs to be taken care of in healthier ways. Her voice has always been silenced, in phases throughout her life.

Always an advocate for everyone else, but not myself. I'm a hypocrite, but you know what?

I am advocating now.

My younger self would be proud.

We are taking care of each other now.

💚

[rnacreative]

5 years ago was 2018... I was a completely different person. I change each year it seems.

I was in trauma therapy then, and disconnected from everyone, including myself. Healing my traumatized and abused brain. Inner child work too.

My inner child was a dreamer and believed in the good of everyone, even when they showed her time and time again they weren't good. My inner child was stuck, frozen in her pain, unable to escape it, only then did succumb and lose her self completely.

Dreams were no longer dreams only empty promises and things she never believed she was worthy enough to achieve.

Her worth was taken and stripped away and all she knew was survival and the breakdown of it on her mind.

2018 was the moment for past and present selves at the time. That chance for more, healing too.

It is a lonely journey and an interesting but chaotic self-discovery. She fought back for her inner child, nurturing and believing in her creativity and spirit, that saving herself and finding peace with all that had gone wrong.

There's still been a lot of healing and mistakes made since. But there was growth too, still is and more to do.

I fought for myself then. And I still fight for her now, even when we're still figuring it out. I believed in better and I still do.

We owe it to ourselves to continue even when the destination is unknown.

To dream and be. Whatever that becomes.

Wonder who I'll be in 5 years.

🖤💜💙💚

[rnacreative]

She sat on the balcony railing, looking off into the distance in the pale moonlight. The moon was illuminating the trees and city lights in the distance. Quietness.

Silence.

There was something missing, or someone rather. A missing warmth, a touch.

"Why are you out here alone?" A voice asks, one she dreamed up.

"I'm always alone. But it's not such a bad thing. The night is beautiful like this," she muses quietly, aloud to herself, looking up toward the stars above.

"Indeed, she is," the voice, getting closer now.

"Why are you here?" She asks, humoring herself.

"To keep you company, of course."

She smiles before frowning. She couldn't do this again.

"You're not even real," she sighs, the heartache settling in deep, an ache she'll always cling to. It somehow reminds her that she's still alive. Still experiencing enough to create something from nothing.

"I can be as real as you want me to be," the voice claims.

"You're another story in my head..."

The voice is right behind her now.

"It doesn't have to be," it whispers.

A small smile begins to form, and she says nothing else. Basking in the moonlight, it's minutes later when she turns around.

Reality sets in at the darkness behind her and no one is there.

"See," she whispers to herself, turning around, "In my head... It's only me here. You'll always be another story to write."

The daydreaming part of her begged to differ, that inner romantic.

Does it have to be another story?

[rnacreative]

She stepped off the ship, taking in the familiar port. The heat on her skin, the sunshine, and the palm trees.

The journey was long, and she learned a lot about herself. Her years of sadness were a thing of the past. Her journey would continue, but she made an internal vow. She wouldn't look back except to remind herself of where she's been and to help others; a sole reminder that she still had much to do.

She wasn't finished yet.

Not by a long shot.

[rnacreative]

Me when I finished writing the ending to my vamp series.

[rnacreative]

Glencoe, Scotland Photograph: Jian Hui Mo

[rnacreative]

© Nona Limmen {Instagram / Patreon}

[rnacreative]

[rnacreative]

[rnacreative]

1. You must let the pain visit. 2. You must allow it teach you. 3. You must not allow it overstay.”

— Ijeoma Umebinyuo

[rnacreative]

Dele Olanubi

[rnacreative]